Nigeria is an enigma. The 55-year-old entity has refused to fall apart despite the centrifugal force at play. It survived the 1964/65 season of anomie code-named Wild, Wild, West, prompting the gunmen to scramble out of their barracks and roll out the tanks in a desperate move to contain the crisis that was tipping the nation from the edge of a precipice.
A bloody coup resulted in January 1966. Perceived to be a one-sided putsch by a section of the armed forces, a counter-coup followed barely six months later. The retaliatory overthrow precipitated a national upheaval.
By the middle of the year 1967, the eastern part of the country was led into secession by the late Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu who was a colonel in the Nigerian Army. Gowon panicked and unleashed the federal might on Ojukwu and the rebel forces. The Biafran dream endured for 30 long, agonising months before it evaporated. And Nigeria remained a united, indivisible entity… stronger and more prosperous. Thanks to the oil boom years that followed immediately.
Then at 50, the Nigerian nation was served with a prediction notice from faraway United States of America to the effect that its Doomsday was imminent. 2015 was fingered as the year of disintegration. Being an election year, many took the prediction with mixed feelings. To be precise, the disintegration prediction was made in 2010, the eve of the 2011 general elections.
Notwithstanding the unprecedented post-election violence that followed the 2011 exercise especially in some parts of the North, Nigeria stood solid like the Rock of Gibraltar. However, Nigerians began to take the forecast more seriously only a few months to the 2015 general elections when they saw the fearful colours political campaigns were tarred with the moment the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) sounded the whistle to kick-start the exercise.
For the first time in the history of this Giant of Africa, the Nigerian political class did not wish the country well. The likes of Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti state, who propagated the philosophy of vote-catching through tummy infrastructure, and Femi Fani-Kayode, the spokesperson of the PDP Campaign Organisation, behaved not like true sons of Yoruba land where respect for elders is sacrosanct. Fayose spewed up so much vituperation on Buhari that it would take the latter Christ-like spirit to forgive him. And I remember advising him (Fayose) to leave room for reconciliation when his mordant tongue was getting out of control.
I also asked him how he would relate to Buhari should he eventually become his president and commander-in-chief. Perhaps he went on overdrive because he never gave the people’s General a dog’s chance of unseating President Jonathan, his benefactor. Not many did!
As for Femi, that opportunistic young man, he enjoyed attacking the now president-elect. Never in his wildest dream did he imagine that his principal, armed to the hilt with the arsenal of incumbency, would be uprooted from the fortress of the Aso Villa until 2019. But the duo got a shock of their lives penultimate Tuesday when the underrated General pulled a stunning victory. The late American president, Abraham Lincoln, is a lesson in serial losses. You bet… Buhari must be a good student of the US political history.
Then came Elder Godsday Orubebe who could not withstand the Tsunami of Change sweeping across the nation. For almost 30 minutes, the former minister of Niger Delta Affairs danced naked for the entire world to see at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, where the results were being served. I, like several other onlookers across the globe, had thought the elder was dancing to an Otuoke melody played by the president.
But for the equanimity of INEC’s boss, Prof. Attahiru Jega, in the face of provocation, the elder would have succeeded in scuttling the process. A temperamental Jeganaut would have boiled over and smothered him with his flowing gown. We later found out that it took a phone call from Mr. President to calm the raging bull. Thereafter, Jonathan, having read the writing on the wall, quickly put a call to the people’s General to congratulate him on the victory that was yet to be made official.
That singular act was like pouring oil on boiling water. Everywhere became calm. Nigerians had prepared for war. They stockpiled victuals and other essentials needed to remain in the safety of their abodes. But 72 hours after the fearful exercise, nothing untoward took place… no upheaval; no killings. Jonathan had averted the looming Armageddon and shamed the prophets of doom. Many began to wonder whether the presidential election had been postponed (again)… ad infinitum. Hurray, Nigeria has survived! Wishing you all a happy survival.
In the coming days, we shall be talking about the daunting task of taming Nigeria’s No. 1 foe, CORRUPTION, among other enemies awaiting the people’s General on the battlefield.
